Experiences and reviews of online TEFL courses

[losone]

TEFL England / TEFL Scotland Review

Course
Overall good course, a bit repetitive at times, some topics were covered twice in the biggest course available. You receive a certificate for each topic, so in the end you have loads of certificates. E.g. '10-hour video course' - I think that one would look a bit pointless to an employer, don't you think? Personally I would prefer one certificate stating '130-hour TEFL course'.

Experience
I am unemployed and have been since starting the course a few months ago. In the brochure, it stated that if I am unemployed I'll get a 20% discount. TEFL England are always doing 20% discount promotions, so when buying the course, I clicked the unemployed discount. A few months later and near completion, much to my surprise I receive a call asking for proof of unemployment. Being unemployed, I was asleep at the time of the call in the morning, I asked them to call me later. Without warning, today, a week later without the promised call I have received an email stating they'll take out the money from my account! Just like that, yes they can (I read some small print online today). I really expected more from this company, as they seemed so nice at the start. Maybe I was just expecting them to have some decency. Where will I get the money from now? In fact, why didn't they tell me about this before? Why didn't they ask for the proof at the start of the course? To keep me sweet so that I don't ask for a refund and instead wait for one of their regular 20% promotions? Which doesn't require proof of anything.

Overall verdict
TEFL England use loads of terms, the UK's most highly accredited TEFL course provider etc. Only one of them really matter in the end, which most other TEFL courses also have. The 3 day in-person course was quite a good experience, however this really isn't enough time to gain confidence to walk into a classroom. After the way they treated me I am not going to do the advanced course with them that I was thinking of doing. This course is priced well, with the discount of course! And I do feel that everything in this course I have seen online, and indeed you can learn every single bit of this information from a good TEFL book. The jobs they have on their website are pretty much all of the usual jobs you can find online. China, Thailand etc. I don't hold any grudges against this course or company, but I did want to give an honest review as I didn't find any before enrolling. There are so many courses online regarding TEFL, so before spending your money, check out reviews first.

My rating of TEFL England is *** (3 stars)

[CelticAlbion]

I have my TEFL certificate with this company. Never had a problem with them, although I've found they've not really given me any support to find a job and now I've completed my course, I can no longer write on the forum there, only read posts. Have to say that during my online course, my tutor always gave me detailed replies to my e-mail and I found her very helpful.